Andrew Sullivan reports in the Daily Dish this fragrant quotable from Sarah Palin at her Rolling Thunder bike appearance in Washington:
"I love the smell of the emissions."
Now that she's found a way for the media to mention her, has there ever been an over the top national politician who has made so much money purposely doing silly things. Next: a bungee jump without a bounce? Or maybe Medea-like, to soar aloft in a magic chariot!
Finally, did you happen to see the the full-page spread on traveling circuses in today's New York Times. The headline told us: No Elephant Left Behind: On the Road With the Circus.
Although I'm sure it was coincidental, the paper's facing page carried a large photo and story about biker Palin's bid to be.... the elephant that wasn't left behind.
Harper's June Index had this report re religiophiles:
Amount of federal money that went to National Public Radio in 2010: $2,700.000.
To Jerry Falwell's Liberty University: $446,000,000.
John Boehner and others in his crowd are complaining that the reason a majority of Americans oppose the wonderful Ryan Medicare proposal is that they don't understand it. Peter the Great had the same problem with his subjects who were not on the same page with some of his ideas, lamenting: "They understand everything erroneously."
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5 comments:
Every red blooded republican wants to be nailin
that nutcase idiot Sarah Palin
Evangelicals are all in shock man
over that representative michelle bachmann
Please deliver me from what they sent me.
The boring governor pawlenty
Question for Abe:
I get up this morning, pour a cup of java, tune in to an online radio station and the first thing I hear is a discussion of Queen Sarah and her Magic Bus.
Again.
If we all were living back a few decades, before the era of 24/7 cable news, before said news became "info-tainment", before celebrity worship became one of the central obsessions of Americans, would this attention seeking, beauty queen be getting the media play that she enjoys today? Or would she have been dismissed by serious news outlets for what she actually is?
Thought I'd ask a real journalist.
JLM, although the media have long operated on the theory that "names make news," it's also true that there is little that is new in old news (Read: Palin). However, that has changed somewhat by the great splash of media sources and the frantically competitive talking heads and pundits who gravitate to whatever they believe will help their ratings. The pols like Palin are very much aware of how the game is played (as was Trump) and manipulate the system to perfection. The only guy I know who has challenged his colleagues' media circus is Lawrence O'Donnell, who accurately repeated that Trump was a non-candidate and predicted the exact time The Donald would withdraw as a potential candidate. 0'Donnell is again raining on the media parade by predicting that Palin is not a presidential candidate. For those who are glued to Palin's stunts, it's all about ratings. It is a case of highly paid media celebrities fussing over a highly paid political celebrity. So Palin easily wins this matchup as the game foolishly plods on.
O'Donnell's reasoning that Palin will be a non-candidate due to Fox News' suspension of those contributors who have announced a run and that Sarah's mug remains plastered on their programming seems very valid. The fact that she quit the governor's office, what, seven months after the election should be an indicator of this women's seriousness when it comes to actual civil service. She wants to be a celebrity, nothing more.
And it's working.
Liberty University is gaming the system by counting their 52,000 online students to get the federal money.... about $8,000 per student. Enough to make Brennan drool.
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